Veteran politician and second republic governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, diagnoses President Goodluck Jonathan’s National Day speech.Balarabe Musa
What do you make of the claim by President Goodluck Jonathan in his independence anniversary speech to set up an independent multi-sectoral charity presidential initiative to fast-tract economic restoration of the North-east ?
Why now? How much did he allocate to avoid the insurgency in the first place?
He also made mention of the just concluded National Conference as the greatest gift of the centenary celebrations.
Why would he praise his committee? That committee was not even sovereign enough to be called a conference, not to consider it as the greatest gift to Nigeria. He funded everything from the beginning to the end for more than four months.
Did he achieve it with funds allocated by the National Assembly?
It is the National Assembly that approves funds to carry out public functions. What he did on the Confab is political fraud. As president, he should not undertake any public function with money not provided for by the National Assembly.
What do you make of his claim that Nigeria is the largest growing economy in Africa, with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $510 billion and the 26th largest economy in the world?
Potentially, we are all aware that Nigeria should be the largest growing economy in Africa, but the GEJ administration is yet to concretise this by making it a reality. It is unimaginable that we live in a potential wealthy nation but the people are living in abject poverty.
How has this administration affected the lives of more than 20million post-secondary graduates who have capacity but are incapacitated and unemployed? Which oil rich country has such ridiculous situation in the world?
But he has answer to that in his speech when he claimed he had initiated a special support program for micro, small and medium enterprises with an intervention fund of N220 billion.
How many people are beneficiaries of such mind-blowing fund in each local government of the federation?He should stop the mockery. The money was given to party members. They enjoy it by spending it irresponsibly. Everything is determined by corruption in this country.
What about the presidential job creation board which he claimed was inaugurated with the charge to create about three million jobs annually?
We are yet to see it come to reality. There are so many promises he made that have not been kept. Let’s wait and see if the promise would be kept or not, or it would be like one of those empty promises.
The military claimed to have killed Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau. Do you actually see the government winning the war against insurgency in the North-east?
How can it be won when the government is suspected of funding the insurgency?
The $ 9.3billion seized by the South African government is a clear indication that someone is funding Boko Haram through government. Since the scandal broke, have you heard about anybody arrested in connection with it?
Rather what we hear is the allegation against the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN. Have you heard about the arrest of any public officer, be it Customs, the police or Immigration in connection with the scandal?
No public officer can be arrested because any public officer arrested can expose those involved. Only the name of the owner of the aircraft is being mentioned not those who flew in the plane. Ideally they ought to have identified and exposed those officials by now, arrest them the way they would arrest lowly placed individuals.
Another question we should ask ourselves is ,the president of CAN is a good friend of Mr. President, why should the government plan against him now to the extent of accusing him without sound reasons?
He is free to hire the aircraft to anybody. After he has hired the aircraft, he would not suspect those hiring the plane. So why accuse him because of the association he belongs to?
They are trying to make him the scape goat.
What is your position about Shekau being killed as claimed by the military?
We have heard that several times. How many times would they claim they killed him? He has been killed many times but he is still alive.
Is there any proof to show he was captured? Why should we regard this latest claim as credible? If such claim were to be true, the international media would have captured it.